McDonald's in Chicago is the latest Apple Store copycat - but not the first by far

McDonald's new flagship store is making a clear effort to mimic the Apple Store. AppleInsider takes a look at the plan, and also a takes a look back at Microsoft, Sony, and others who have "borrowed" elements of the Apple Store aesthetic in retail.

There are many reasons for the Apple Store's huge growth, and it's even more astonishing for another reason. Retail, in that same time frame, has largely collapsed, at least in the United States. Many chains have closed, and the ones who have survived have needed to come up with a compelling reason to attract customers who could just as easily order online.

And in that time, some companies have decided the easiest route is to borrow significant elements from the Apple Store.

The Apple McDonald's

The latest to do that is, of all businesses, McDonald's. The fast food giant announced this week that it has opened a new flagship store in downtown Chicago that features a wood-and-glass aesthetic very familiar to anyone who's ever been inside an Apple Store.

The store, which is on the former site of the famous "Rock N' Roll" McDonald's on Clark and Ontario streets, is less than a mile away from the Apple Store's Chicago flagship on Michigan Avenue. McDonalds also recently relocated its global headquarters to the Windy City, to the former headquarters of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions.

According to a press release, the new store is part of the McDonald's "Experience of the Future" concept.

The goal, the company says, is to "dramatically enhance the customer experience with more convenience, personalization and choice. McDonald's EOTF restaurants leverage the convenience and technology of kiosk ordering and table service, the increasing functionality of the mobile app and the hospitality of the McDonald's crew members all in a more modern and exciting restaurant environment." Not all of the future stores will be quite as sophisticated and feature-laden as the Chicago one.

Here are some other companies that have taken inspiration from Apple in their retail endeavors:

The Microsoft Store

Microsoft, in 2009, launched a retail concept which was close to identical to the Apple Store's in both design and strategy. Not only that, but Microsoft made a point of locating its most of its stores in close proximity to Apple's.

Samsung Experience Shops

Samsung experimented a bit with standalone Samsung Experience stores, including one down the street from the Apple Store cube at New York's Time Warner Center in the early 2010s. Samsung also opened popup locations at such events as South by Southwest in Austin.

Tesla

Companies that copy the Apple Store don't usually admit it while doing so. But Tesla Motors' Elon Musk did just that in a 2007 blog post on "The Perfect Tesla Store."

"The type of place we are striving for combines the feel of an Apple store, a Starbucks, and a good restaurant," Musk wrote of his nontraditional dealership concept. "The reason I mentioned Apple as an influence is that their stores are beautiful and stylish, but also simple, fun, and friendly at the same time. Those qualities are what we want to see in our Tesla Stores. We will put as much energy into making our stores look good as we do with our cars."

Tesla has continued to use a look at its locations that more resembles an Apple Store than a typical car dealership, while also using a sales model that's out of the ordinary in the auto industry.

Imitation and flattery

While Apple has spent the better part of the last decade in litigation with various rivals over whether they copied different aspects of the iPhone, it does not appear Apple has ever sued anyone for copying design elements of the Apple Store. Apple didn't invent the use of wood, glass, or uniformed employees in a retail store, nor were they the first to open a branded retail store for its products after not having one previously.

It would appear that Apple is happy to have created a hugely successful retail arm, at a time when the retail industry has gone in the opposite direction, and that Apple is confident that it can compete with rivals who have elected to borrow key elements of its concept. But in the case of Tesla and now McDonalds, competition isn't such a concern.

Comments

hahaha - would be interesting to know how much all these different designers and copycat designers got paid! when everything looks like an Apple Store, then Apple will have to do something different yet again

The original Apple Store concept evolved from a designer Apple hired from GAP retail store design if I'm not mistaken. I seem to remember fanfare around the whole thing as a press release posted by Apple.

That design is completely antithetical to the anti-health products (nee "food") McDonald's sells. There really is no way to gloss over the fact that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a root cause of nearly half of U.S. healthcare costs. Just as cigarets should cost $25/pack to cover the associated healthcare burden, a Big Mac should cost $25 a pop, too. Slow poison is what McDonald's sells.

1. This is a modernist aesthetic that exposes structural elements, something referred to as structural honesty. Apple does not employee this type of aesthetic.

2. All glass systems were around decades before Apple started using them. This particular McDonald's uses a structural mullion system for the glass, something Apple has not done for a long time since they first went to a structural glass system in New York City at the Cube.

3. No one would mistake this interior for Apple.

It is quite a stretch to say that this McDonald's is copying their aesthetic of Apple Stores.

There really is no way to gloss over the fact that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a root cause of nearly half of U.S. healthcare costs. Just as cigarets should cost $25/pack to cover the associated healthcare burden, a Big Mac should cost $25 a pop, too. Slow poison is what McDonald's sells.

You really can't blame American fast food chains for the poor dietary choices Americans make. There is nothing particularly unhealthy about a Big Mac. The problem starts when a person eats three per day, everyday, along with sodas and fries. If you only ate one McDonald's meal a week and the rest of the time fresh fruits and vegetables, you'd be fine. Obesity, is for the most part, a personal choice.

As far as cigarette usage is concerned, America is much lower than Eastern Europe and Russia. Nicotine is a difficult addiction to break but at least in the US there are programs that work, so again it is a personal choice. As long as you are talking about unhealthy habits, I would rank alcohol use right up there with the others and the worst countries are again Eastern Europe and Russia.

1. This is a modernist aesthetic that exposes structural elements, something referred to as structural honesty. Apple does not employee this type of aesthetic.

I think you're making too wide of a generalization with Apple's store designs. Malls or historic buildings or underground settings? Yeah, you're not typically going to see much exposed structure. But the structural glass stores would definitely be just as "honest" as this design. You also need to consider that McDonald's is probably using a ton of laminates for the tables and seating, so the "honesty" only goes so far.

There really is no way to gloss over the fact that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a root cause of nearly half of U.S. healthcare costs. Just as cigarets should cost $25/pack to cover the associated healthcare burden, a Big Mac should cost $25 a pop, too. Slow poison is what McDonald's sells.

You really can't blame American fast food chains for the poor dietary choices Americans make. There is nothing particularly unhealthy about a Big Mac. The problem starts when a person eats three per day, everyday, along with sodas and fries. If you only ate one McDonald's meal a week and the rest of the time fresh fruits and vegetables, you'd be fine. Obesity, is for the most part, a personal choice.

As far as cigarette usage is concerned, America is much lower than Eastern Europe and Russia. Nicotine is a difficult addiction to break but at least in the US there are programs that work, so again it is a personal choice. As long as you are talking about unhealthy habits, I would rank alcohol use right up there with the others and the worst countries are again Eastern Europe and Russia.

Oh, yes, we really can pin the blame on the food industry, along with a complicit government. There is a lot that's unhealthy about a Big Mac. The Big Mac would not be at all popular if its sauce lacked sugar and there was no ketchup to add. The bun is fiberless, nutrition-less junk calories. Take note that sugar is a key ingredient in almost every item on Starbucks' menu and has been added to 3/4ths of the items on shelves in a typical grocery store. Sugar is highly addictive, non-essential, and not satisfying for more than an instant. Should one blame the addict or the pusher? I blame the pusher. Just 10 superfluous calories consumed per day (1 Big Mac every 2 months) adds up to 1 pound of weight gained per year in the form of fat. Our over consumption of sugar and other fiberless carbohydrates are the cause of a plethora of diseases and conditions. But products based on sugar and carbs are very stable for long-term storage, which permits the food industry to ship and store products world-wide, spreading disease and death along with their commerce (nice tax revenue for governments).

Yup, alcohol is a carbohydrate, too, in the same class of slow poisons as table sugar and corn syrup and even fruit juice. Even moderate drinking is unhealthy.

Sure, sugar consumption is a choice, but just try to cut out sugar. It takes tremendous willpower in the face of widespread prevalence of sugary products, flashy advertising, and a populace that is all just as hooked as you are and will look at you like you're crazy when there's so much fun to be had by consuming sugar in so many creative ways. There's a reason obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, possibly dementia (type 3 diabetes?), etc. have risen dramatically since fat was demonized in the '70s. Due to "evidence" promoted by the sugar industry, sugar and other carbs replaced much of the fat in our diet. But people don't know how to properly regulate their sugar intake, and sugar causes more health problems than fat.